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Tactics for more reliable IT

Stuff breaks. It’s a fact of life. For corporations that rely on data centers to produce revenue, downtime can be hideously expensive. Administrators have to keep the infrastructure up and running smoothly, so there are some key tactics to improve reliability and ease overhead at all levels. Desktop virtualization lets organizations replace full-featured, independent PCs with simple endpoints running desktop applications—even entire instances—delivered from a server. This reduces the amount of software installed and maintained on each PC and eases the support requirements from IT staff. When a desktop endpoint fails, a user can simply log onto a new device without reinstalling anything. In my article “How to Plan for Desktop Virtualization,” you’ll learn about the most important considerations involved in preparing a data center for virtual desktop infrastructure and application virtualization. In addition to spotting unsuitable use cases, you’ll see the five key steps to desktop virtualization preparedness. The cloud is another...